When “Sex First, Process Emotions Later” Fails You

The Frisky Fairy Discusses

People have told me my language is “inappropriate”, I’ve tried to tone that down here. So please, let go of the pearls you’re clutching.

I am a slut. I have taken to reclaiming the word as a badge of honor rather than as an insult. I identify as a “Megasexual“. This meaning of this word was coined by myself and Dr. Liz Powell at our Panel “Actually, it *is* About the Sex” during Atlanta Poly Weekend 2015.

We defined a Megasexual as:

Megasexuals are characterized as person who lacks emotional connection toward any person or persons unless they first form a strong sexual connection with someone. The level of sexual connection it takes for an emotional bond to form is often dependent on the initial attraction to the person. It is an orientation that is not chosen, but often discouraged due to sex negative attitudes.

Megasexuality is often discouraged due to sex negative attitudes, and can frequently leave megasexuals (or megas) feeling frustrated when they are involved in long term relationships where their partner prefers to form an emotional connection before a sexual connection.

Mega- is a prefix meaning “great”. This is to indicate that a megasexual does not feel an emotional connection to someone with whom they do not share great sex.

This is a term that’s really spoken to me the more I spend time with it. It is something that I’ve really never understood about myself until recently, and it simply makes sense. If I’m not quite sure about my romantic connection with someone, it’s always because I’m not quite sure how compatible we are physically.

It’s important to note here that I’m a touch based person. In my love languages results, touch is my highest score. I’m super sensitive to the feelings of fabrics under my skin, to the way people touch me. It makes sense that when people touch me the right way, that I enjoy it. It also makes sense that I am extremely picky about who gets to touch me. Many people think that I’m just not a hug person, which is sort of true. It’s more that I’m super sensitive to people touching me, and if I’m not 100% sure I want them to touch me, they aren’t allowed. This is made complicated in the spaces where I’m meeting two new people, and one is a person who I react positively towards, and I want them to touch me, the other is not. This isn’t anyone’s fault, but it’s rather a gut instinct that causes a visceral reaction. The way I communicate my affection and intimacy towards people is through touch. Because touching people and being touched is the way I feel connection.

The part that gets tricky for me is that if my sex life with someone is great, if the physical connection is great, I tend to fall in love very quickly. I have no problems with the concept of falling quickly for people. In fact, it’s something that I love about myself. I love that I feel my feelings strongly and quickly. Sometimes, those feelings stick around for a very long time. Sometimes, they dissipate almost as fast as they arrive. I’m not going to pretend that people haven’t been hurt by that, and I’ll be honest when I say that I’ve not always been good about communicating this fact.

It’s been shown in my life, that relationships that take a strong physical component tend to wrap themselves up in a strong emotional component. Because of this, I typically use a very specific timeline. I usually have sex pretty early on in my relationships, the first or second date or so. After that, I continue on depending on the person. If the sex isn’t great, but the person is someone I’m interested in as a person, I usually give them a second shot, but I’m a busy person with limited spoons to give, and I don’t want to waste their time, or my own. If the sex is enjoyable, the emotions take some time to build so I can be sure that the sex stays awesome. This plan works. It almost always works. So, when things don’t go according to my plan, I get a little fucking frazzled.

I’ve had two experiences that confounded me and made me re-evaluate my plan. The first was someone who went on a first date with me, and never really followed up with it after (or at least, not in a way I noticed). Because of that, I wrote him off as uninterested. I wrote him off because we didn’t get physical enough for me in the appropriate amount of time. By that I mean we didn’t go on a second date,and therefore we didn’t have sex, so I lost interest. I really liked talking to him. I found him unbearably attractive, but I assumed he wasn’t interested in me, so I maintained a polite, distanced friendship so as not to get too attached. About a year or so later, we went on a second date, he kissed me, and we spent the rest of the night unable to keep our hands off each other. The emotional connection was so fast and strong it was overwhelming. Usually the emotions build slowly as I get to know someone physically, but this was so fast it almost seemed unhealthy. Yeah, the sex was amazing, but it wasn’t that good, right? What happened after that is the most incredible, breathtaking relationship I’ve had. What we have together is something that has completely changed not only my thoughts on my plan, but also my expectations in relationships. Almost a year later and we still can’t keep our hands off each other.

The second was much more recently. A guy I had been messaging with on OKCupid went on a date with me, and we got on pretty well. I found him hard to read, because there was not a lot of physical interaction while we played shuffleboard. I invited him back to my place with my best pick-up line (“Wanna go back to my place and watch cartoons?”). After the cartoons, we had some really great sex. He warned me that he got weird on the second date. I didn’t anticipate what that meant, but apparently it meant that he backed off. For weeks things were reasonably non-physical. It’s only because of my first encounter with my obliviousness to people who are interested that I continued to pursue things. Eventually, I was starting to worry that he simply wasn’t interested in me, or didn’t find me physically attracted but I ended up really starting to like this guy as I got to know him non-physically, which was pretty new for me. I was sort of in a space where I was really stubborn, and took this as a bit of a challenge. I was either going to have this person as a partner, or as a damn good friend. Turns out it was/is/seems like both. We’re still exploring this, but I’m interested to see where it goes.

These two experiences were amazing, and I love having them in my life, but they have had me really conflicted about myself. Can I still call myself a person who still only falls for people who I have incredible physical connections with? What if I’m falling for people who I’m not as physical with? What if my emotional connection with one person is faster growing than my physical connection? Worst of all, what if I have a deep emotional connection with someone but our sex life is awful. I realize that polyamory sorta helps that along, but I don’t know that is something I can deal with.

And then I realized something that I’ve been teaching for ages when I talk to people about polyamory. I don’t know why it took me so long to take my own advice. You can’t fit people into boxes. Relationships grow organically, and trying to push them into a definition you want, rather than letting them evolve on their own is only going to end in hurt or frustration.

So yeah, I can still be a slut and a megasexual. Yeah, my relationships are typically physical first and then emotional. Yes you can be a person who connects physically first, and then emotionally. You can have relationships that fall out of your norm. Just because I’m dating cis-men doesn’t mean that I’m not pansexual. Relationships are always shifting, always evolving. People fit in the spaces we have, not the spaces we want them to fill.

One Reply to “When “Sex First, Process Emotions Later” Fails You”

This is the first piece I’ve read on your blog, and now I can’t wait to read more! I felt like you were writing this to me! I have always identified myself as a sexual person, and could never get very far in a relationship that wasn’t immediately sizzling with physical chemistry and desire. People that I have dated in the past were all over the map in terms of looks, age, career, interests etc.. The one thing that they had in common with each other was that we had amazing sex!

Then I met my now boyfriend, and our sex was bland. It was vanilla. And I told people it was vanilla and that it wouldn’t last long. But something kept him around. Maybe it was the fact that he treats me like royalty? Maybe its because he is interesting, and funny and intelligent? Who knows. But thank GOD I didn’t throw him out to the wolves just because of my past measures and expectations of relationships. Relationships with men who, by the way are my EXES.

I’ve written this down as one of my future quotes to read. Its gold. “You can’t fit people into boxes. Relationships grow organically, and trying to push them into a definition you want, rather than letting them evolve on their own is only going to end in hurt or frustration.”

Thanks for an awesome piece!

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